Mahogany Mountain 2007 Merlot featured wine of the week!

I am so excited about this good news! We heard from our friends last week that Barona Casino's steakhouse featured our wine along with two other wines on their menu. Too bad that we had plans to go up to Sonoma for the weekend. Otherwise, I'd have loved to go to Barona and had a good steak dinner with our Merlot while the wine was being featured.

Coincidently, Mike's Mom happened to be in town so we told her that we would take her out to dinner at the Barona's Oaks Steak house and would have our wines with dinner! How fantastic would that be for Michael to show off his wines to his Mom. Then, the drama began. Just before heading to dinner, we found out that the restaurant has sold out our Merlot. Although we were disappointed, but since we already made reservation, we decided to go ahead with our dinner plan and would make do with ordering our white zin to go with the first course and maybe a red wine to go with our steak dinner.

It was our first time to go to the Barona Oaks steak house after their latest renovation that cost $15M. Oh My Gosh, it was posh! The dinning room had a delightful ambiance and was beautifully decorated with high end decor and furnishings. There was a piano player playing beautiful soft music the entire evening.

The wait staff treated us very well as soon as they saw us. They all were friendly and greeted us with big smiles. They gave us the best table in the house, right in front of a big fireplace. The table was magnificently decorated with very nice china and silverware. They even had a huge orchid flower arrangements at our table. There were very nice and "correct" wine glasses for wine tasting and enjoyment. That alone put us in a happy mood immediately. I took in the whole scene with great anticipation for a marvelous gourmet meal.

Our waiter was a really nice chap with a Germany accent but was born in Mexico! He told us with a big smile that he had been briefed that we were the winemakers from Mahogany Mountain. So he proceeded with his recommendation for the dinner. We ordered our Mahogany Mountain white Zinfandel to pair with a very good spinach salad with goat cheese, walnut and cranberries, at the recommendation of our waiter. It was fantastic. I loved the wonderful combination of the goat cheese, tangy dressing, walnuts and the dry sweetness from our white zin. Then we proceed to order the featured red wine (a Ramona red zinfandel from our friends' winery) to go with our steak dinner since the restaurant has sold out our Merlot. Lo and behold, the waiter came back with a beaming smile because while looking for the other red that we had ordered, he found the last bottle of our Mahogany Mountain 2007 Merlot! It must have been good karma! We all were so happy, especially Michael and his Mom! They were beaming ear-to-ear! His Mom was so proud of her son! After years of seeing him working so hard on the vineyards and building up the business, Ruby finally had a fleeting moment of pride. Of course, our Mahogany Mountain 2007 Merlot was an excellent wine for the steak dinner. The wine was dry but robust with fruit character, beautiful color and had a fantastic bouquet. Perfect match for the steak dinner that everyone at the table had ordered. The chef did an excellent job on the steak that I ordered medium rare: juicy, tender like butter and perfect rareness (without blood running everywhere).

We were so touched that the chef came out and said "Hi" to us. He was so nice and down-to-earth! We told him how much we had enjoyed the meal and thanked him for preparing the staff for our visit.

You should go check out the Barona Oaks Steakhouse. The dinner menu has excellent choices of steak, seafood and other white meat. Their prices are very competitive to other steakhouses of the same class. Our wines are listed in their wine list. On the main wine list (last page - local wines) our two wines (Mahogany Mountain White Zinfandel and Mahogany Mountain 2007 Merlot) are included by the bottle. The price of our wines is so puny compared to a bottle of a French wine that costs $7,500.00. Can you believe that? When we win lotto, we'd come back and order that!


Cheers
Kim